November 3, 2012

Headlines Politico, pointing its readers at a very effective ad that they might otherwise avoid:

The "questions" referred to in the headline are about who is helping Peterffy, a political neophyte, to make and place such ad. But there's nothing interesting there, and Peterffy comes across as an intelligent, persuasive independent:

Typically, such ads call for supporting or opposing specific candidates, but Peterffy’s ad is more vague because it doesn’t mention specific candidates — only an encouragement to vote Republican....

Peterffy said he supports Republican candidates because he sees the rhetoric of social justice and fairness from Democrats, including President Barack Obama, as a slippery slope. He also said Romney’s 47 percent comment reflected his own fears about the future of the country and was taken out of context.

“My understanding was that he said he had no ability to influence the 47 percent,” Peterffy said. “That’s the very logic I’m based on. I’m worried about when that 47 percent goes to 60 percent.”

How could George Soros also come from Hungary and draw such different conclusions ? I think Soros, like Warren Buffet, has concluded that he can make money from what some call "crony capitalism" but which, to me, looks more like fascism.

At one time, Soros was a bit of a hero to me as he funded democracy movements in eastern Europe but he has changed and seems to prefer something other than a market economy, at least for those of us who are not in his circle.

I've seen the ad, probably on FNC. Gee, so a billionaire could afford to hire someone to market his message. I'm shocked, shocked!

Also, anyone who wants to question the validity of whether Obama and the Democratic Party advocate socialism: please send your arguments to me. It seems that the mere terms "socialist" and "socialism" have become unspeakable, like the "n word". How could you say such a thing?! Yet it's true.

It is a very good ad.Perhaps he should have made it more implicit. He fled socialism....

" NOW EUROPE is in worse shape than ever, EVEN WITH THE SOVIET FALL because they kept socialism.Obama wants to take us down the European road...and trust me, as an emigre...you don't want to go where Obama is trying to take America."

It is a very good ad.Perhaps he should have made it more implicit. He fled socialism....

" NOW EUROPE is in worse shape than ever, EVEN WITH THE SOVIET FALL because they kept socialism.Obama wants to take us down the European road...and trust me, as an emigre...you don't want to go where Obama is trying to take America."

My wife and I visited Vietnam last year. While the government is communist, the people are the most capitalistic I've ever seen. Our guide said something very interesting. This is as close to an exact quote as I can manage:

"Following reunification, we were a socialist country. You know what socialism is? It's where if I work hard and you don't, we get the same thing. So no one worked hard. About 20 years ago, the government changed their policy. Now, if you work hard, you get more. Things are much better now."

I don't live in a swing state but I see that ad all the time on CNBC, Fox Business News and Bloomberg. Thomas Peterffy personifies what America is and has always been about which is the land of opportunity.

I was recently having a discussion with a friend from France here in Quebec. I said that it seems that many Americans feel that Europe is doing things correctly and that we should be more like European countries. Guilliaume responded in his thick French accent, "No. Europe is a shit hole. I want to live in America." He's pretty pumped because his company wants to transfer him to NYC this winter.

This ad strikes me as just incredibly anodyne. Every immigrant who comes here comes with a story of how they fucked things up in the old country and how (s)he can see it's coming down the pike here in the USA.

I don't say this to demean the ad, nor the immigrant experience. Rather, it is, as the ad says, how we should learn from history.

If one really believes in multicultural pluralism, one needs to listen to folks from other cultures who call into question one's most cherished assumptions. Otherwise, you're not a multi-culti --- you're just bored with white people.

This ad strikes me as just incredibly anodyne. Every immigrant who comes here comes with a story of how they fucked things up in the old country and how (s)he can see it's coming down the pike here in the USA.

I don't say this to demean the ad, nor the immigrant experience. Rather, it is, as the ad says, how we should learn from history.

If one really believes in multicultural pluralism, one needs to listen to folks from other cultures who call into question one's most cherished assumptions. Otherwise, you're not a multi-culti --- you're just bored with white people.

There are not many socialists around anymore; they are a dying, not say dead, breed. But wrongheaded as they were, they were serious people and could, and would, do math and other hard stuff. Todays' "progressives" are not serious people.

And I question whether Obama belongs in either camp. "Critical race theory" is foolish, but it is not socialism nor really "progressive." If it were to succeed in this country, many "progressives" would be chagrined to wake up and find they were not included with the favored classes.

I would really like to be a billionaire, to have $8 million to spend on an ad. I would need to have at least a billion before I would blow money like that, but that would be fun. 1000 million dollars! The stuff you could do with that.

One of the big problems is that worker wages, in real constant dollar value, have been stagnant since 1980 - under both Republican and Democrat Administrations. While wealth further concentrates in the hands of a few.

The result is great cynicism about claims that working hard means you will see your income rise, job security rise, and your standard of living increase.

Many, not incorrectly, IMO, see the game rigged for the politically connected and the richest 1%.

The big money comes not from working hard, but house-flipping, knowing Denny Hastert or Franklin Raines and getting in on the 88 million dollar land deal or the telecomm licenses.From being in a Hedge Fund inner circle and getting what millions you make taxed at only 15%. From the well paid lobbyists that steer Dubya Bush's billions in defense and "heroes of counterterror" contracts to the "right people", or Obama's "right people" that are getting the Green Jobs money and still make out like bandits even if their project fails and no jobs are created.

Both Parties making IOUs to Bank of China to pay for new prescription drug or ObamaPhone entitlements. Or "free neocon wars of adventure" costing 2 trillion. Or bailing out the bankers, 100 cents on the dollar while screwing little lowly citizens who invested in those banks.

We should vote for Romney though, because he looks to be less corrupt or tolerate corrupt people around him bleeding America in their sly little deals....than Gore, Dubya, DeLay, Feinstein, Obama did.

It's on all the time here -- the Boston market gets all the good ads because of New Hampshire. Plus the Warren-Brown ad frenzy. And the Tisei-Tierney ads, even though I'm outside their district, because they're getting all the national party support.

His comment of, “My understanding was that he said he had no ability to influence the 47 percent,” Peterffy said. “That’s the very logic I’m based on. I’m worried about when that 47 percent goes to 60 percent.” fascinates me. I was not offended by Romney's 47% shtick, but I couldn't figure out why. I grew up in a family where it was shameful to ask for monetary help, unless you paid it back. My dad grew up very poor because his parents worked hard and saved their money for their two sons's educations, even if it meant not having the quality of living that other people had.

If somebody is comfortable taking help and has no desire to pay the money back or try to individually support his or herself as quickly as possible, it is a "slippery slope." I don't know what causes this shame from not being able to provide for your own well-being, but if people are losing that, we will have a nation of dependents.

Wow! It was quite an accomplishment to squeeze so many logical fallacies into such a short ad. The only people who will be impressed by that ad are the morons who ignorantly screech "Obama is the most liberal president... EVAR!"

I've seen the ad several times in Wisconsin. The first time I saw it, I clapped.

What is important to remember is that the number of people moving up into those wages is exploding worldwide, even if it reduces the rise in wages for limited groups that formerly benefited from the limited supply of those capabilities. The unstoppable trend is that those capabilities and the wages that go with them are far more mobile than ever due simply to technology. It cannot be contained, and it's a foolish dream that somehow it will be. The important thing to be working on is creating and nurturing upward mobility for those with the drive for it. Regardless of whether or not "average wages" stay steady, what we can and should do is make it as common as possible for people to enter that range and move past it on their way to being higher earners. It's just silly to think that everybody can be above average or that average can always continue to be a richer and richer situation.

The problem that's abundantly clear to me as an employer who is always trying to find good people is that far fewer of our people are equipped by our culture and education system to even move into the middle earning range. Education is no longer designed in the interests of the students or the society, and the culture is diseased with ideas of class warfare and entitlement. Central to that is the idea that not performing is someone elses fault - the Chinese, the politicians, the rich, the other guy. It's a fatal idea to the individual or a society.

Jake- the ad does have many generalized conclusions about why soviet eastern Europe was the way it was. There, of couse, were probably fairly successful people in these situations and their basic needs may have been met by the government.

What specifically do you discredit as a logical fallacy and why? Do you believe he is lying about his testimony? I don't know anything about Original Mike, since I cannot view his profile, but what if he (for argument's sake) had a similar background to the man in this commercial, had a similar experiences and drew these conclusions *on his own*, and was happy coming to the land of opportunity to make his living becoming a manager of a hardware store? (Totally hypothetical). Would you discredit his thoughts? Do you not like that he is successful and using his money to make his voice heard even if you don't agree with it?

But tell me, what are your thoughts, other than we are stupid anti-liberals?

There are not many socialists around anymore; they are a dying, not say dead, breed. But wrongheaded as they were, they were serious people and could, and would, do math and other hard stuff. Todays' "progressives" are not serious people.

I agree with this. I remember running into actual socialists in college. They were much more interested in the system they wanted to create without engaging in the never ending content-free temper-tantrum we see from the OWS types.

Think about it. We have advanced so far so fast that you have to ask the question: how much can we really improve the lifestyle of the average middle class person in the U.S. with more income? In general they can't buy a longer life. There is little functional difference between the middle priced and the expensive in cars, health care, homes, leisure, or much else. There are of course differences but they are not substantial to the enjoyment of a life unless you have delusions of grandeur. The one thing most people could do effectively with more money is give themselves more freedom, more time to do what they want. It will take advances in technology and productivity to increase that for the large group in the middle - science and time, plain and simple. Trying to do it through social policy is a kind of faith in a perpetual motion machine as many in Europe are finding out. The great thing we all know is that no individual has to wait for the average wage to improve. Go get yours, if that's what you want.

I realize that most Americans haven't lived in another country and therefore they may hold ignorant views about other systems of government. But when someone says something that sounds preposterous, it probably is preposterous.

For example, "I grew up in a socialist country... There is no hope, no freedom, no pride in achievement." Well, unlike Peterffy, I've lived in more than one socialist country. I've seen that the terms and conditions of socialism vary from country to country and government to government. Based on firsthand experience I know that Peterffy's claim is absolute nonsense. Just as in the United States, the people I observed, met and knew in socialist countries had hope, freedom and pride in achievement. So Peterffy's ad begins with the absurd extrapolation fallacy and becomes increasingly more ridiculous.

Engaging your critical thinking abilities is not a bad thing. If you examine the claims in the ad, you'll see that Peterffy's ad is full of nonsense.

Well Jake, we are on the slippery slope. More regulations are the MO for BO. A cabinet dept for business Don't we have a commerce secretary?

More regs = less freedom. To agree otherwise is silly. I value my freedom more than anything else.

Since Bronco Bama signed Bambicare, my monthly health insurance premiums have increased $500/ month (from $800/month to $1300). That's $6000 year I could be putting into my retirement which I fund myself.

I haven't watched the ad because I can't play it where I am now, but as someone who is an American because my family fled communism, I can pretty much imagine what's in it. (Maybe I'm wrong. Won't know for a few hours.)

I'm not much of a Republican, generally, but this issue/collection of issues is the reason I will never be able to abide the Democratic left, which still hasn't faced up to being 100 percent butt-wrong on every single aspect of the most important geopolitical issue of the 20th Century. They still speak in the same smug, self-superior tone they used to ridicule those of us who believed the Cold War mattered and that the U.S. wasn't the villain of it.

Just remember who those people are: the ones who said we were the imperialist aggressors, who said the Balkans were not subjugated states but happy members of the Soviet family, that the Berlin Wall was there to keep Westerners from flooding the workers' paradise, that Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent frame-up victims.

"People lose interest in working hard and creating jobs." That's a bunch of crap. Americans, including the ones I know, are strivers and want to work and create and innovate. This is yet another old white guy complaining that the old days were better.

@Mitchell the Bat: if you've lost interest, get off your ass and stop complaining.

Are Americans just harder-working SOBs than those layabouts in Europe? Although I must admit that I'm about to cite an analysismade by an old white guy, at least he's an OWG with a Nobel Prize in economics:

According to [Edward] Prescott, the reason for these large differences in labor supply is not culture. "French, Japanese, and U.S. workers all have similar preferences," he writes. "The French are not better at enjoying leisure. The Japanese are not compulsive savers." The reason for the wide range in working hours is, in a word, taxes. Europeans supply less labor because there's a much larger wedge in most European countries between what a worker is paid and what that worker actually gets to keep after taxes are taken out.

"I realize that most Americans haven't lived in another country and therefore they may hold ignorant views about other systems of government."

I've also lived in several countries, and roomed with people from still other countries. My take on socialism is different from yours. Different experiences do not equal logical fallacies or "absolute nonsense".

Based on his description, I suspect that Peterffy grew up in a Marxist society. If you have lived in a Marxist society and still claim that peterffy is speaking nonsense, I'd question the validity of your reported experience.

A society, like Sweden, which at one time was relatively homogenous, like a big extended family, can do quite well with socialism, for a time. The system does sap their initiative, their wealth does not grow as fast without the incentives of unfettered capitalism, but if they started out with a high standard of living, they can stagnate in comfort. Countries, like Sweden, run into problems when outsiders, who have no intention of integrating, come into the country to live off the benefits but do not make a comparable contributin to the society. Then everyone suffers a declining standard of living. The Swedes are paying for their own colonization.

The United States is a large multicultural society, which takes in desperately poor immigrants, and tries to raise their standard of living. The only way this can happen, without lowering everone's standard of living, is if there is a rapidly growing GDP. Capitalism has worked very well to lift millions out of poverty, socialism, not so well.

No one says the U.S. is a fully socialist wreck TODAY. They fear what will happen if we go in that direction in the future. The essential American concepts of hard work and innovation and reward, which some but not all of us love, do still exist. For now. Got it?

Let me attempt to explain this in a few paras. My late father-in-law was a Hungarian who walked and crawled 200 miles to his freedom in the rains and snows of late 1956. To his dying day he displayed the worn shoes in which he walked to his freedom.

Those who came with him in '56, along with smaller numbers from 1948 have always born immense hatred for socialism and anything which resembles it.

There has, however, always been a minority of Hungarians who believe(d) socialism is the answer. Soros is one. To say the two sides detest each other is an understatement.

The is also, to this day, a strong undercurrent of Jew hatred in Hungary because in the chaos following the 1918 collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire Hungary was taken over by socialists, Communists, Marxists, and Leninist ... nearly every one of whom was Jew. Nearly a century later the distrust remains.

Soros is part of that socialist stream, though I'm not aware he comes from its Jewish roots.

Peterffy, BTW is an anglicised form of Petöfi, a family producing the great mid-19th-century libertarian poet, Petöfi Sandor (last names are first in Hungary, and S is pronounced SH).

This guy comes by it honestly. His love of freedom is in his blood, bones, and genes.

fivewheels. Democrats: "Just remember who those people are: the ones who said we were the imperialist aggressors, who said the Balkans were not subjugated states but happy members of the Soviet family, that the Berlin Wall was there to keep Westerners from flooding the workers' paradise, that Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent frame-up victims."

If you're not already enjoying yourself in the asylum, you should go there.

There must be balance leslyn. Bronco Bama governing style has no balance; To wit: bankrupting coal fired power plants by edict, taking over the haelthcare industry, shoveling stimulus money to Solydra type companies, suspending drilling permits in the gulf and on it goes.

Go where there is little civilization? You mean FEMA managed Staten Island?

Leslyn, Did you read that Bronco Bama suspended the clean air regs for gasoline sales to the flood ravaged areas? Why did he do that? Let me you why. He did it to get gasoline to the marketplace expeditiously. Hypocrite.

Did you read that FEMA ran out of bottled water yesterday. Apparently this storm surprised them.

In light of the bottled water shortage, do you think Mayor Nanny Doomberg (Idiot-NY) will suspend the regs for selling 20 oz. cokes?

"Brownie"? Perhaps you'd rather compare him to Bushie and Katrina. In any case, why are you complaining? FEMA will be abolished. There won't be any government intrusion in disasters. You CAN go to Walmart, as someone mentioned above. People will be self-sufficient and not dependent on government aid. So why are you complaining that there isn't ENOUGH?

Working in Silicon Valley I remember hearing this sentiment from older Eastern European co-workers, more than a few who were recovered lefty fundamentalists. Of course Silicon Valley is American opportunity on steroids times 10, so freedom to succeed and/or fail on one's own merits without undue interference is THE 1ST COMMANDMENT. I expect the groundswell against software patents (patenting the obvious & despite prior art if one spent an hour investigating) will reach the rebellion stage within 2 years. Lawyers, meh!; tho some of them make fantastic bloggers :)

Leslyn said: (quoting me)"... the chaos following the 1918 collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire Hungary was taken over by socialists, Communists, Marxists, and Leninist ... nearly every one of whom was Jew. "

Your slip is showing.-------

And just what "slip" might that be? Every Pesach I chant the kiddush for my family, in Hebrew.

Number 1: read your history before mouthing off on something you don't understand.

Number 2: you could do better if you didn't stumble past appropriate opportunities to keep your mouth shut. See also Number 1. Again.

Leslyn, your name is unusual. I don't want to trespass on your privacy, but the only other time I've encountered it was that it was Robert Heinlein's second wife's name. Curiously, she seems to have shared your ideological convictions, from what I read of her and you.

More relevant: I'm not sure what you meant about the "asylum." It's a matter of record that a whooole lot of people considered Hiss and the Rosenbergs innocent victims rather than the spies they have definitively been shown to be, for instance. (Heck, I remember learning that there was doubt about it when I was in junior high, about 30 years ago.) Or was it some other unquestioned Truth of the Left that you thought should have put fivewheels into an asylum?

One of the big problems is that worker wages, in real constant dollar value, have been stagnant since 1980 - under both Republican and Democrat Administrations. While wealth further concentrates in the hands of a few.

So leslyn compared me to the Little Red Hen above. I didn't remember the story, but I've now looked it up. Do you know the tale? Is that supposed to be an insult?

Long story short, the other animals decline to help the hen plant the seeds, water and harvest the grain, mill the flour and bake the bread, but then they want to help eat the bread. The hen says, "Um, I don't think so." This teaches the lazy animals to help with the next loaf, and then and only then do they all share.

It's so telling. Is the Little Red Hen now considered the villain of the story? An evil 1-percenter who unfairly abuses the other animals by ... thinking ahead and working hard? Is that Occupy mindset so ingrained in some people that a very simple children's story with an obvious moral now is interpreted in the opposite way from what was intended?

Thomas Peterffy presents an empirical argument based on time-series evidence. Jake Diamond rebuts it with an empirical argument based on cross-sectional evidence.

This is the kind of idiocy that I encounter all too often at Althouse. No doubt Chippy thinks he's a clever fellow, but the problem here is that he's evidently not clever enough to understand the ideas being discussed.

Peterffy extrapolates from his personal experience in communist Hungary and reaches broad conclusions framed in absolute terms (e.g. "no hope, no freedom") about socialism in any and all forms. Because Peterffy speaks in absolutes, it requires only contradictory evidence to prove him wrong. That's what I've done with respect to the quote from the Peterffy ad.

Chippy's comment is a perfect example of how the Althouse lemmings reliably get things wrong--they're reluctant to examine ideas critically if the ideas fit conveniently into their worldview. In this case Chippy is desperate to believe that socialism is evil and that people who live in socialist countries live miserable lives without hope. That's why he feels compelled to defend Peterffy's illogical conclusions.

I come to Althouse specifically to see what people I generally disagree with have to say. Occasionally someone makes an interesting observation, more frequently someone will post something unintentionally humorous, but most of the time I see a repetition of dull and stupid comments borrowed from Limbaugh, Malkin, or one of the other right wing loudmouths. If I wanted to read or hear that kind of crap, I'd go straight to the source.

"Peterffy extrapolates from his personal experience in communist Hungary and reaches broad conclusions framed in absolute terms (e.g. "no hope, no freedom") about socialism in any and all forms. Because Peterffy speaks in absolutes, it requires only contradictory evidence to prove him wrong. That's what I've done with respect to the quote from the Peterffy ad."

Does Peterffy speak in absolutes or generalities?

I think you're guilty of a fallacy as great as any he made. Because he didn't say "most people" every other word all you need do is identify an exception?

If what I want to know is how the socialism he experienced impacts people's motivation to work hard and strive, finding an example of someone in that system who was a real go-getter in spite of it, disproves or proves nothing at all.

Because if those systems didn't do what he says they did, you don't need an example contrary to his, you need an alternate theory to explain why they sucked so bad.

If you don't have an alternate theory of why those economies tanked and resulted in so much misery you don't have anything at all.

Jake can keep saying Peterffy's argument is illogical for as many days as he likes, but that still won't make it so.

Synova explains things pretty clearly, as did Illuminati @ 6:08 PM yesterday, so there's no need to add much. But I will add this: Peterffy's argument is that more socialism = reduced incentives. He uses his native Hungary as an example of socialism taken to its extreme. That's not illogical, and it's not the sole basis for Peterffy's argument. If JD thinks that he's more aware of the variety of socialist societies than Peterffy is, then JD is just an arrogant fool.

There's plenty of empirical evidence in support of Peterffy's general proposition. My comment@ 6:06 PM yesterday provided a link to some of that evidence. Nothing in Jake's personal experience refutes any of that evidence.

You see, Jake, the argument is that any particular country is less prosperous the more socialist it is. It does not mean that all countries that are socialist to any degree are all impoverished.

But I'll give Jake credit for one thing: He's not making the usual argument that Obama's agenda doesn't constitute a move toward socialism. So, there's that.